Becoming a Champion Water Polo Goalie

Become a brick wall in goal using these technique and drill progressions from goalie guru and 2000 Olympian Sean Nolan! Learn more than 15 drills to develop the skills you need to cover every inch of the cage.

Building the Base - Prepare to stop any shot by building a solid base position! Coach Nolan provides a three drill progression for creating a powerful egg beater kick. Building on the egg beater technique, Nolan introduces techniques and drills for moving side-to-side and forward and back using only the legs keeping the hands free and ready to block shots.

Nolan includes a key stretch to assist with injury prevention, flexibility and mobility in your legs.

He also demonstrates game-like reaction drills teach the goalie how to maintain a great base position and how to read and react to the opponent.

Movements - Improve your ability to handle a counter attack and to adjust quickly to cross passes. Nolan delivers detailed instruction on developing an explosive step lunge. He includes keys to effective drifting to help you maintain mobility in the goal.

Nolan includes drills to train transition from off balance to in balance with an emphasis on leading with the lower body to recover from awkward situations. He trains his goalies to take big steps with the legs - the key to successful movement and body control. This movement is trained with both hands in and hands out and focuses on pulling from the inner thigh to initiate movement.

Throughout these drill sequences, Nolan demonstrates many common errors associated with each skill set and how to correct each.

Stepping - Learn a three-drill sequence that is effective for training the legs to drive the goalie into the correct blocking position and developing a quick recovery after a step lunge.

Blocking - This segment includes blocking strategies focusing on hand readiness, the lunge, head to the ball position, and learning when to go with one or two hands. Nolan utilizes lane line shooting drills from a variety of positions to train the goalie on which area of the cage to cover based on the angle of the shot. These drills train the goalie to position themselves correctly "within the triangle". The goalie also gains a sense where they are in relation to the goal in situations where they cannot turn and see it.

Nolan's movement drills help train goalies to constantly adjust as the ball moves around the perimeter and how to handle playing out of the goal. Nolan gets specific with goalie positioning at various shot positions. In each position, Nolan discusses specific hand and body positioning for ideal defending.

As a bonus, Nolan presents a Putting it All Together segment that serves as a comprehensive review of the skills and strategies presented. Nolan narrates this review through a PowerPoint presentation, and includes additional nuances for becoming a champion water polo goalie.

This comprehensive guide is sure to assist you and your team in stopping more shots!

92 minutes. 2011.